I encourage people to use the board's IGNORE feature (Foe, I think it's called). If there's someone who posts "I hope we get swept by [insert opponent]" every couple days, and it drives you nuts, ignore them. If you hate the majority of my posts, click here and add me to your foe list. I was fairly liberal with it a few months ago, and now I enjoy the board a LOT more.

Grotewold wrote:Also, I know no one wants to hear it, but the physical breakdowns of Halladay, Utley, and Howard were huge factors the past two years. And the only one many/most wouldn't have committed to was Howard, who realistically would have been replaced by someone like A-Gonzalez who wouldn't be saving us single-handedly

The bullpen has been the other huge factor. As bad as the Qualls (who's now pitching pretty well) and Durbin signings were, they were relatively low stakes. Adams was a big risk, but one I was fine with, given the circumstances. We've been almost comically unlucky with the young guys, and/or not developing them properly. Hard for me to buy the latter when Dubee (and, maybe, Nichols) has done such a great job with the young starters over the years

In 2008, 6 of our 8 regulars were between 27 and 29 years old.

Between 2010 and 2012, we had one season of Victorino, and 1 point something seasons of Hunter Pence as our only regulars under 30.

When you play a lineup of guys who are almost all between 31 and 36, you can't be surprised by injuries. Can you be surprised that Halladay or Utley or some specific guy got hurt? Sure. Can you be surprised that 2 or 3 of the 11 or 12 guys that had significant responsibilities and were in their early-to-mid thirties got hurt? No, I don't think you can.

I understand that. But what should have been done differently? The team was at its peak as recently as 2011, and went into 2012 as the favorites (despite serious injuries). Should they have started unloading sooner than that?

The Pence deal, I can certainly understand criticism of. But I (and most) liked or at least understood it. What else? They re-signed Hamels (which people were preemptively pissed at Rube for not doing) and hung onto Brown and changed course mid-2012

I'm not saying there wasn't a better approach, just that it isn't clear to me. I think it was reasonable in 2010 and 2011 to wait until 2013 or so to make serious changes to the team, at which point Utley and Halladay and Ruiz and others would have been gone

I don't hate anyone's posts, just subject to my own kneejerk reactions when I read a thread someone bumped just to say "See! I hated Rube in 2009" with a little "I miss Ed Wade" mixed in for flavor

Grotewold wrote:I understand that. But what should have been done differently? The team was at its peak as recently as 2011, and went into 2012 as the favorites (despite serious injuries). Should they have started unloading sooner than that?

There are 30 men (soon to be 30 people) tasked with running these billion-dollar enterprises. It's their job to be elite - to EARN the right to run a company of that size, with the community impact each of them has (not to mention the community support / tax breaks / financing they receive, despite generally not needing).

Being OK at the job, or doing generally more good than harm, just isn't acceptable.

It's not YOUR job, or MY job, to annually spend two or three thousand hours of our time (and tens of thousands of our staff's hours) analyzing the market, our team's position in it, our assets, our finances, the likely market for talent, etc. It's HIS job. The fact that you don't see moves that could have been made, in the couple of hundred hours you spend thinking about the Phillies from the outside, on your free time from your actual job, doesn't excuse Amaro from seeing it.

I still believe multiple posters on this board, with proper support from legal / finance / scouting / whatever the person's blind spot(s) is/are, could do at least as well as Amaro. And that's an awful feeling.

That's an impossible standard. Just because it's a GM's job to make the moves doesn't mean that the moves are there. You want to hold Amaro accountable for painting himself into a corner, that's fine, but that's also a different argument. Once he's in the corner, the lack of a coming up with a miracle fix doesn't amount to a further mistake.

Shore wrote:

Grotewold wrote:
I still believe multiple posters on this board, with proper support from legal / finance / scouting / whatever the person's blind spot(s) is/are, could do at least as well as Amaro. And that's an awful feeling.

I disagree with this in a big way.

The guys who actually know how front offices work and who know how tough a job being a big league GM is write that all of us who think we could run a big league team would be hiding under our desks by noon on the first day.

I believe that to be true. Except for most of us it would be 10 AM. I don't care how much "support" anyone on this board gets. No one here is nearly qualified to be even the worst GM in MLB.

We have guys here who i'm sure are good at fantasy and stratomatic and fan duel and stuff. But in the real world of MLB, there is not a soul here who could come close to running a big league team.

The guys here would have traded Ruiz and Victorino for elite armed Ian Snell back in the day. Because we could easily replace Ruiz with Jaramillo and Victorino with Andruw Jones.

Thank goodness no one here is running the Phillies. We'd be lucky to have a team that would win 60 games.

After a trade is made you can't undo it in real life. Your stuck with it. That's why every big league team has made bad deals over the years. Every one of them.

A team built by BSG would have Ian Snell as the staff ace with Sean Marcum and Rick Porcello and Brandon Morrow in support. And a lineup featuring Kevin Youklis and gorgeous swinging Hamilton and Jason Jaramillo and Trot Nixon and Mark Teahan and some international guy doing time for murder somewhere and Brandon Wood and Jeff Keppinger and maybe Mike Saunders and Wilson Betamit.

60 games? Maybe 45 is more like it.

The problem is we remember all of our few brilliant ideas and forget about the stinkers. I once wrote down a team of BSG recommended players for fun. I don't really remember too many of them because we forget stuff like that pretty easily. But it was a stinko team that's for sure.

I'm sure there are some people on this board who could do a reasonably good job as a major league GM. Executive management is learnable skill. it's not sorcery

The hardest part for any of the antisocial dorks here would probably the soft/people/negotiation skills, but I'm sure there's at least one among us that's an actual real, accomplished human possessing those capabilities currently

Plus the fact that Trent Steele graduated high school when he was 11.

Woody wrote:I'm sure there are some people on this board who could do a reasonably good job as a major league GM. Executive management is learnable skill. it's not sorcery

The hardest part for any of the antisocial dorks here would probably the soft/people/negotiation skills, but I'm sure there's at least one among us that's an actual real, accomplished human possessing those capabilities currently

There might be a few who could do the executive management part. Tv here might be a few who could even pull f a trade with a real big league GM. There might be a few who are really good at player skill identification. There might be a few who could talk to intelligently to scouts and player development folks. There might be a few who could understand the budget and the financial part of it. There might be a few who could deal with the press. There might be a few who could deal,with the owners.

In my opinion, there is no one here that could come close to doing everything a GM must do. I could be wrong.

phatj wrote:That's an impossible standard. Just because it's a GM's job to make the moves doesn't mean that the moves are there. You want to hold Amaro accountable for painting himself into a corner, that's fine, but that's also a different argument. Once he's in the corner, the lack of a coming up with a miracle fix doesn't amount to a further mistake.

We clearly disagree. I hold him accountable for the entire body of work. Not for discrete phases - "painting into corner", "lack of miracle fix" - but for position A, resources / options / philosophy.... position B. We were there, we had this at our disposal, were are here. It's not acceptable. The course of action we took to get here was entirely his decision.

This isn't like managing a department store, or a department at a company. It's an elite job, highly desirable, extremely well compensated, running an enterprise worth a billion dollars. Fuck impossible standards. The standards should be extremely challenging, and "maintaining success" when you have a huge financial advantage isn't unreasonable.

smitty wrote:

Woody wrote:I'm sure there are some people on this board who could do a reasonably good job as a major league GM. Executive management is learnable skill. it's not sorcery

The hardest part for any of the antisocial dorks here would probably the soft/people/negotiation skills, but I'm sure there's at least one among us that's an actual real, accomplished human possessing those capabilities currently

There might be a few who could do the executive management part. Tv here might be a few who could even pull f a trade with a real big league GM. There might be a few who are really good at player skill identification. There might be a few who could talk to intelligently to scouts and player development folks. There might be a few who could understand the budget and the financial part of it. There might be a few who could deal with the press. There might be a few who could deal,with the owners.

In my opinion, there is no one here that could come close to doing everything a GM must do. I could be wrong.

In my opinion, we know very little about anyone here outside of how they interact on a message board. I'm guessing there are several people with real executive management experience. IMO, it's easier to teach baseball to a guy who can manage people than to teach management to a guy who knows baseball. We often see the latter in baseball.

Shore wrote:

smitty wrote:

Woody wrote:I'm sure there are some people on this board who could do a reasonably good job as a major league GM. Executive management is learnable skill. it's not sorcery

The hardest part for any of the antisocial dorks here would probably the soft/people/negotiation skills, but I'm sure there's at least one among us that's an actual real, accomplished human possessing those capabilities currently

There might be a few who could do the executive management part. Tv here might be a few who could even pull f a trade with a real big league GM. There might be a few who are really good at player skill identification. There might be a few who could talk to intelligently to scouts and player development folks. There might be a few who could understand the budget and the financial part of it. There might be a few who could deal with the press. There might be a few who could deal,with the owners.

In my opinion, there is no one here that could come close to doing everything a GM must do. I could be wrong.

In my opinion, we know very little about anyone here outside of how they interact on a message board. I'm guessing there are several people with real executive management experience. IMO, it's easier to teach baseball to a guy who can manage people than to teach management to a guy who knows baseball. We often see the latter in baseball.

I'm guessing that no one who posts here are one of the top 30 executives in their field in the entire world. Just a guess. I'm guessing that even if there is a soul like that here, only some of the skills they have would be transferable. And they would be smoked by real GMs whilst they tried to learn how to be a big league GM. And they would quickly have a team capable of winning 45-50 games a year. And they would be gone long before they get enough experience to be successful. Just a guess.

I think the fact that everyone I have ever read who knows about this sort of thing laughs heartily about the notion of taking some guy off the street, no matter how smart or accomplished and expecting that he can succeed as a big league GM is pretty compelling to me.

Also being a big league GM is pretty much a 24/7 type of gig. I think that eliminates pretty much everyone who posts on a message board with any frequency at all.

Shore, do you think I can run the Phillies?

Howard's giant contract aside, I'm not entirely sure what they could have done anyway.

I'm sure some people wanted Youkilis or someone instead of Young but even he sucks now. I often think people forget we did let Polanco leave to get him.

Delmon Young is kind of a shitty signing but he's makin like six bucks

We generally are against overpaying relievers, but our relievers who make no money suck a lot this season.

Cole Hamels falls into a "couldn't predict that" category

Various relievers not sucking so bad and Hamels being Hamels would have made the season quite a bit different even with Halladay etc hurt

They also could have "rewarded" Pierre's fluky season with at least a minimum deal but they didn't do that

philliesphhan wrote:We generally are against overpaying relievers, but our relievers who make no money suck a lot this season.

Mike Adams would disagree on the $ and still delivered the suckitude and injuries

smitty wrote:

Shore wrote:

smitty wrote:

Woody wrote:I'm sure there are some people on this board who could do a reasonably good job as a major league GM. Executive management is learnable skill. it's not sorcery

The hardest part for any of the antisocial dorks here would probably the soft/people/negotiation skills, but I'm sure there's at least one among us that's an actual real, accomplished human possessing those capabilities currently

There might be a few who could do the executive management part. Tv here might be a few who could even pull f a trade with a real big league GM. There might be a few who are really good at player skill identification. There might be a few who could talk to intelligently to scouts and player development folks. There might be a few who could understand the budget and the financial part of it. There might be a few who could deal with the press. There might be a few who could deal,with the owners.

In my opinion, there is no one here that could come close to doing everything a GM must do. I could be wrong.

In my opinion, we know very little about anyone here outside of how they interact on a message board. I'm guessing there are several people with real executive management experience. IMO, it's easier to teach baseball to a guy who can manage people than to teach management to a guy who knows baseball. We often see the latter in baseball.

I'm guessing that no one who posts here are one of the top 30 executives in their field in the entire world. Just a guess. I'm guessing that even if there is a soul like that here, only some of the skills they have would be transferable. And they would be smoked by real GMs whilst they tried to learn how to be a big league GM. And they would quickly have a team capable of winning 45-50 games a year. And they would be gone long before they get enough experience to be successful. Just a guess.

I think the fact that everyone I have ever read who knows about this sort of thing laughs heartily about the notion of taking some guy off the street, no matter how smart or accomplished and expecting that he can succeed as a big league GM is pretty compelling to me.

Also being a big league GM is pretty much a 24/7 type of gig. I think that eliminates pretty much everyone who posts on a message board with any frequency at all.

Stop projecting your inferiority complex onto the rest of us

Doll Is Mine wrote:Shore, do you think I can run the Phillies?

No idea who you are, or what your skills are (relevant skills, I mean).

Shore wrote:

phatj wrote:That's an impossible standard. Just because it's a GM's job to make the moves doesn't mean that the moves are there. You want to hold Amaro accountable for painting himself into a corner, that's fine, but that's also a different argument. Once he's in the corner, the lack of a coming up with a miracle fix doesn't amount to a further mistake.

We clearly disagree. I hold him accountable for the entire body of work. Not for discrete phases - "painting into corner", "lack of miracle fix" - but for position A, resources / options / philosophy.... position B. We were there, we had this at our disposal, were are here. It's not acceptable. The course of action we took to get here was entirely his decision.

This isn't like managing a department store, or a department at a company. It's an elite job, highly desirable, extremely well compensated, running an enterprise worth a billion dollars. #$!&@ impossible standards. The standards should be extremely challenging, and "maintaining success" when you have a huge financial advantage isn't unreasonable.

I certainly agree that he should be judged on his whole body of work. But it's facile to reduce that body of work to "we were at point A, now we're at point B". Especially when we're really at point C, having passed through point B (102 wins) on the way.

The question grote asked you was what Amaro should have done to avoid the team becoming old and injured, at a time when it was hitting its peak. You dodged this question by saying that that's what Amaro's job is, regardless whether it's an unsolvable dilemma.

We often say that GMs should not "mortgage the future" by trading prospects for marginal present-day gains. Isn't the converse just as bad, though? If you have an ascendent or peaking team, what are you supposed to do? Ride it as long as it lasts, trying to tweak/improve where possible, or aggressively stave off future collapse by trading useful players for prospects now, weaking the present?